


knife with butterfly wings (or: "Didn't we already arrest this bitch?")

by leradny



Series: Assassins! [1]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Ambassador Kaldur'ahm, Assassins AU, F/M, a little OKAY A LOT of a parody, artemis thinks dick is hot tho, assassination attempts via fountain pen, dick was abducted at a very young age, everyone else is pretty IC lmfao, fountain pen via rich snobby diplomats, he has no sense of identity outside of highest level assassin, matchmaking via assassination attempts, not quite at romance yet, playing fast and loose with the court of owls, so he's basically cass now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 14:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16557671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leradny/pseuds/leradny
Summary: "It appears that we have received the same target. And I do not remember being told to work with the Shadows--" Artemis aims her harpoon gun while he’s talking, but the Talon gently taps the barrel to the side with his baton. She should remember that double entendre for later. "Excuse me," the Talon says. "But I really think we should work this out like professionals."(repost of a fic from tumblr.)





	knife with butterfly wings (or: "Didn't we already arrest this bitch?")

Tigress swims, gripping her harpoon gun easily in one hand, and cutting swaths through the kelp forests with a modified machete in the other. She normally doesn’t take this much gear, but the anti-gravity properties of water make loading down less of a problem. So she has variety and backup, which is kind of nice. The Atlantean congregation waving Ambassador Kaldur'ahm off to the surface is a big clue to where he is, and Tigress follows the sound of cheering. She swirls some kelp around her, gets in-between the columns, and takes aim.

“Oh, my,” comes a high, distorted voice.

Tigress turns, because it’s the first English that she’s heard since she got past the scientist scuba diving depths, and puts her hand on the trigger of the harpoon gun at the sight of the scuba diver with a mask over his helmet. The bird-mask of a Talon from the Court of Owls. Or maybe a Talon is wearing a scuba helmet under his mask. They’re weird like that.

“What do you mean, ‘oh, my?’” Tigress asks. “Who even says that anymore?”

“It appears that we have received the same target. And I do not remember being told to work with the Shadows–” Artemis aims her harpoon gun while he’s talking, but the Talon gently taps the barrel to the side with his baton. She should remember that double entendre for later. “Excuse me,” the Talon says. “But I really think we should work this out like professionals.”

It is a yantok. The Talon turns to reveal the other half of the pair, and Artemis kicks him into one of the graceful Doric columns.

“You can’t have him! I am getting paid good money for this guy’s head and they will know if I wasn’t the one to kill him!”

“Paid!” the Talon says. “Do you know who else gets paid?  _Soldiers._ ”

He dashes at her head with his baton, and only Artemis’ reinforced scuba helmet saves her from massive brain damage. By now, the cheers have turned to frightened whispering as security guards usher people out, both because Tigress and the Talon are doing a better job of defending Kaldur'ahm from each other than his own security, and because neither are speaking Atlantean. A scuba diver swims down from the service, tapping Kaldur'ahm on the shoulder.

“Your Excellency, I am a member of the United States Navy. Our submarine is waiting–” The man looks over to Tigress and the Talon, and swims a vague loop over to the front. “Sir, is there a situation here?”

“Yes, but it is of my own devising,” Kaldur'ahm says. “My people caught word of a planned assassination attempt. On my suggestion, we enlisted another assassin, so that they would be forced to fight each other before attempting to kill me.”

“Bold move,” the soldier states. “Let’s not be too bold, though.”

The Talon severs the line of Tigress’ oxygen tank. There’s a valve which prevents water from rushing into her helmet, and air from escaping, but she still needs her rebreather. Kaldur'ahm and the Navy member begin a hasty retreat as the Talon yells, “See if your  _money_  can buy you another oxygen tank at the bottom of the ocean, Lady of Shadows!”

Once Tigress presses the button which unlatches her rebreather from the back of her helmet, she harpoons the submarine, fights her way in through the hatch and drops what guards are waiting, then finds Kaldur'ahm. It’s not hard. She follows the sound of dull metal thuds and water sloshing. The Ambassador is hindered by fear of damaging the sub with his water magic, and the Talon is gaining ground in such close quarters.

Before she makes her presence known, Tigress thinks of a one-liner.

“You know who doesn’t get paid?” This stops both combatants. Tigress grabs the end of her harpoon line and throws it around the Talon’s yantok, yanking them away. “Starving artists!”

“I am hardly starving!”

“Would you like some darjeeling with your snobbery?” The Talon rolls his eyes, then flails as Tigress swings the harpoon end of the line around and yanks him along with it. “Good evening, Ambassador,” she greets him.

“Hello, Tigress.” Kaldur'ahm waves an arm. “Guards!”

Several guns are aimed at her. Artemis holds her hands up, and accommodates the guards as they take her to the nearest prison. The Talon, she notices, is simply not there.

\- - -

Artemis wakes up with the left side of her neck twinging. Since it’s her weak side, she doesn’t worry too much. But since she can’t exactly call in sick, she gets up and ready for her second attempt on Kaldur'ahm’s life. This time it’s at the US Foreign Embassy. When life gives you another assassin, try again in the daytime and maybe the Owl will be too busy sleeping. Tigers might be nocturnal, but Artemis isn’t. She’s diurnal at best. And if she’s too groggy to function, maybe the Talon will be out for the count.

She breaks into the confiscated weapons room, finds her butterfly knife, and dusts it off. Then she takes some of the death slag that serves for coffee in the security quarters, and easily slips under the axle of a security truck. Then she hitches several rides to the embassy, the last of which being a bus.

“You,” someone says from above her. Then there’s a soft thump of someone hitting the bus roof. Undistorted, but still vaguely familiar, Artemis turns to find the Talon.

He’s in roughly normal clothes, dark blue slacks and a gray sports jacket. Dark glasses instead of an owl mask. His skin is ivory, all the more reason for his jawline to pop out, and his dark hair to frame his face. Devastatingly handsome, even without eyes. A flash of white at his ankle alerts Artemis to one of his ankles being bandaged roughly. Or not at all, since blood is seeping through his pants cuff and a bandage would hinder flexibility.

Artemis takes a low lunge, fighting to keep her shoulder from twitching. The Talon has the briefest amount of hesitation before taking a lunge, with his weight on the non-bloody ankle. His shoulder twitches as well. She must have gotten him good. And that’s flattering. She’s never fought a Talon before. No one trusts her to not fuck it up.

Artemis swipes at him and he dodges. Then he claps his hands together and rubs them briefly, grabs her shoulder, and jabs at her neck. Artemis yanks away immediately, clutching her collarbone.

“ _What did you do to me?!_ ”

“You had a pinched nerve. It was distracting.”

Artemis twists her neck. Surprisingly, without pain. “Okay, and… why would you do that?”

“You are not my target,” The Talon says. “Or hindering me. I am only wasting energy fighting with you.”

“Oh, come on, you’ve got to have some–” The Talon starts to duck, and Artemis throws herself to the bus roof just as they reach a tunnel. Oh, that was why.

When light reaches them again, the Talon is still there. Still being insufferable. “Outside of my work, I need no reason for my actions. Unlike you.”

“Why not?”

“Integrity is corrupted by motives, which can be exploited. Also, it distracted you so I could do this.”

He springs onto a fire escape. Artemis drops her wrist and feels her butterfly knife fall into hand. She unlatches the handle and throws it, unsheathing the blade at the same time. She knows it hit him, but she also knows he wouldn’t yell if it did. Following the opposite fire escape to the roof, Artemis sees a scattered trail of red droplets leading to the embassy, but no knife. Damn.

At the embassy, Artemis follows the screaming to a panel room filled with panic and the Talon on the stage. “Excuse me,” Artemis says, elbowing her way through the crowd.

“Good morning, Your Excellency,” the Talon says. “Since you are at the podium, you might as well choose your final words.”

“Look behind you,” the Ambassador says.

The Talon takes out something (a mirror?). Immediately, he knocks the podium over. “The Tigress is not close enough to interfere!”

Maybe for a melee fighter. Which Artemis is not. She looks at the desk in front of her and scrabbles around, uncapping every fancy pen she can get her hands on.

Ballpoint.

“Shit.” The Talon stomps on the middle of the podium as Artemis jumps onto a desk in the next forward row.

Ballpoint.

“Fuck.” The Talon wrenches a support rod out and swings at the Ambassador. Artemis jumps to the next row.

Mechanical pencil.

“Damn it!”

The next cap comes off to reveal a fountain pen with a very sharp point and a tapered barrel. Perfect.

As all the screaming well-dressed diplomats are ushered out by half the security, the other half is chasing her, or advancing on the Talon. Artemis makes it to thirty feet from the stage, winds up her arm extra hard to compensate for the pen’s lightness, and throws it straight at Ambassador Kaldur'ahm’s eyes.

The Talon knocks the pen out of the way, though it does score him along the arm.

“Fuck you!” Artemis yells as someone chokeholds her and slaps some handcuffs on her wrists.

“Didn’t we  _already_  arrest this bitch?” the guard asks.

The Talon has disappeared.

\- - -

One of the reasons Artemis hasn’t risen further in the League is the fact that she’s always fucking  _arrested_. Yeah, she gets out, but even she can admit that someone with more professionalism wouldn’t get arrested in the first place. The other is that she’s always mouthing off to her superiors. Long story short, there are plenty of reasons why someone might mark her, which she’s pretty sure is happening as she returns home and passes out, hoping the League and the Court might sort out who got called first.

Artemis tips her coffee into the potted plant. It hisses and burns. Amateur move. Would only work if she wasn’t an assassin herself. Artemis throws the plant into the trash and decides to get another.

Artemis finds a package at her door. She defuses the bomb and stuffs it into the dumpster outside. Even more amateur move after the other one alerted her to its presence. She doesn’t have enough ego to think it’s different people.

Artemis wakes up in the middle of the night to find the window blocked by a silhouette.

“Well, finally,” she says. “Let’s get this over with.” Blank white eyes stare out at her from an owl mask, and for some reason she feels a dull terror instead of dull resignation. “Oh. You.”

“Tigress.” The Talon doesn’t move closer. “Artemis Crock. How much are you paid for a kill?”

“Four, five thousand a pop.” Artemis wonders if Jade’s still on the straight and narrow, or if she’s come back freelancing to the family business. Having the sanctity of marriage and a kid over her head doesn’t mean she’s still good. They’re both proof of that.

“Is that a large sum for a person’s life?” the Talon asks.

“It’s all right. But it doesn’t cover absolutely everything, especially between jobs. I’d probably break 10k if I didn’t mouth off so often–” Artemis stops. “What the fuck am I saying? I’m your mark.”

“Yes. You threw a knife at me, and hit me. Then you threw a pen and nearly killed the ambassador.  _A pen._ ”

“A very nice one,” Artemis says. She knows the good ones go for around three thousand dollars a pop.

“The Court judges that you are a threat. We must eliminate threats.”

She’s flattered, right up until the Talon steps towards the bed. Artemis reaches under her pillow, then remembers that she lost her knife when she threw it at him. He sets down his batons, which is confusing, then takes out a knife. Artemis’ butterfly knife. And holds it out to her. Artemis doesn’t take it.

“Tracker, explosion, poison…” Artemis stares at it and wishes she could turn on the lamp. “Blunted edge?”

“No,” the Talon says.

“You want to finish me off with my own knife.”

“No.”

When Artemis doesn’t take it, he opens it carefully with both hands. If Artemis kept a diary, ever, she’d feel like the Talon was reading it. “Okay, yeah, give it back. Now. Please.” This is the first time she’s ever said it sincerely. Maybe not even sincerely. Desperately.

“It’s older than you are,” he says. “And it was the only one you took. Why?”

Every assassin has a weak flank. This one appears to be confused. Maybe she can maneuver while she stalls, then knock him out. She sits up and makes eye contact.

“It was my mother’s. I took it after she died.”

“Paula Crock,” the Talon remarks. “The Huntress. $40,000 bounty, died without being apprehended. Favored weapon was a balisong with solid rosewood handle, blade of railway steel. $500 in 1970, now worth $3,000. This knife.”

He closes the knife and hands it to her, holding it like one of his batons. It’s a little too slim for his grip, and Artemis exploits the shit out of it by letting her touch linger, just to see what will happen. But he jerks away like he was burned. Well, he's probably a virgin.

“What’s your real name?”

“Nightwing.”

“I mean,” Artemis says, to keep from offending the person who’s trying to kill her. “The name you were born with. Like mine. It’s not Tigress, it’s Artemis Crock.”

Actually, she’s not a good example. Her name is strange and unnatural in this day and age. The Talon–Nightwing–looks more confused than ever, and she doesn’t blame him. Even moreso when he says, “I don’t remember. The Court gave me a new name.” Well, that’s one way to keep people from finding out your civilian identity. He must have gotten in pretty young, if he wasn’t born into it outright.

“How long do we have before they know you’ve failed?” Artemis sits up, lets go of her knife, and flicks her hair behind her back.

“It’s been a week since I tried to poison you,” Nightwing says. But Artemis was too jaded for that, of course. “The Court was lenient as it is not my strong suit. But hand to hand is. Now that I’ve gotten into close quarters, the Court will get suspicious after…” Not long. “Two days.”

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

He takes off his shirt and turns around to reveal several roughly bandaged wounds, one across his back and the other on his right forearm. And then the one on his calf. Nightwing has very few scars for a close-combat assassin, which would be a status symbol if anyone ever saw him up close and in reasonable lighting, and shirtless.

“You are not known, feared, or respected–-” and doesn’t Artemis know it, in her shithole Gotham apartment-– “But these are all from you. If you wanted to live, I don’t know if I could kill you.”

“What will they do if you fail?”

“Kill you. Then me.”

“Well.” Artemis reaches under the bed and grabs her emergency pack. “I didn’t plan on dying today. Do you?”

There's a very long pause. He puts his shirt back on (shame) but doesn't turn around. "I will tell them you escaped and face my punishment with dignity."

"Or you could come with me," Artemis suggests. He's too pretty to be dismembered and sunk in a bog, or with his decapitated head displayed on a pike, or whatever the Court does to their failed assassins.

Another pause. His shoulders quiver. "The Court will find both of us anyway, it is pointless to--"

She sighs. "It's okay to not want what the Court wants. Especially if they want you dead. Do you want to die?"

"I'd rather not," he whispers. Like he's still not sure he's allowed to have feelings. No wonder Nightwing got to the top rank. The brass like people who have no backbones. Otherwise they might do something like–-say–-not kill their mark.

“Path of no dignity it is.” Artemis pats her mother’s knife, holstered in her sleeve. “Two days, hmm? That's a decent head start. And the League won't give a shit about me, so at least we're safe from them." They're more prepared than she's been for a lot of mad dashes to safety, so she decides not to make a stop for more supplies until they've got at least one ocean and no paper trail between them and the Court. "Come on, Nightwing. Let's see how far we can run."

 

**Author's Note:**

> FOR THE RECORD: This was intended to be a oneshot, but reposting this reminded me of just how fucking fun it was. So another chapter is definitely on my mind.


End file.
